IS THIS WHO YOU ARE?

HE was a big, heavy man. His camouflage jacket was buttoned tightly around him. The hat, decorated with skulls, was pulled low on his forehead. The bandana across his face left just enough space to see the glitter of his eyes.

He might just have been wrapped up against the cold, but everything about his dress and demeanour said, “Stay away! Don’t talk to me.”

There were six concrete steps between the car park and the pavement. As I walked down, he stepped up purposefully, and was breathing heavily by step three.

“You’ll get there,” I said, speaking as if I had every right to.

“Oh, I’m getting too old for this,” he replied.

“I know that feeling,” I said with a little laugh.

At the bottom I looked over my shoulder. He stopped at the top and turned. He raised his hand in a sort of salute, and said “Happy New Year, mate.”

For a second we were more than the camouflage we habitually wear; we were fellow travellers on the same difficult journey.

I could have taken his appearance at its word and said nothing, but how we look is so rarely who we are.